Speaking at party conference Owen Paterson, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs set out what the Conservatives are doing to create a living, hard-working countryside with thriving businesses, healthy habitats and abundant wildlife. ‘As Conservatives we are supporting our hardworking rural communities. We’re overcoming the thirteen years of damaging and woefully ignorant indifference the countryside suffered under Labour.’ ‘The countryside is not something that can be preserved in aspic nor would we wish it to be. It is something of which we are custodians. We must seek, as practical environmentalists, to improve our habitats and ecosystems, to leave them in a better condition than we found them.’ ‘I am determined to grow the rural economy while improving the natural environment. The two are not mutually exclusive. They are completely interdependent.’
